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Monument to Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin unveiled in East Sarajevo

Representative of the President of the Republic Srdan Amidzic said that Churkin was a friend of the Serbs and all the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who stood for justice and did not allow humiliation of the Serbian people

BELGRADE, July 8. /TASS/. A monument to former Permanent Russian Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin has been opened in East Sarajevo as a sign of appreciation for his 2015 veto of the British resolution on Srebrenica, Radio and Television of Republika Srpska (RTRS) reported.

Republika Srpska believes that the resolution was aimed at presenting the Serbian people as genocidal.

The event was attended by the diplomat's wife Irina Churkina, Russian ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Kalabukhov, Republika Srpska Transport and Communications Minister Nedeljko Cubrilovic, as well as representatives of the local authorities, parliament members and public figures. The monument was erected on the site of an earlier memorial sign, which was reconstructed and supplemented with a bronze bust.

Kalabukhov said that the monument is a symbol of historical and spiritual ties of friendship between the Serbian and Russian peoples. He expressed gratitude to Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, and East Sarajevo Mayor Ljubisa Cosic for preserving the memory of the Russian diplomat. According to him, it has become a tradition every year, on February 10 - the Day of Russian Diplomats - to lay wreaths at the monument to Churkin in East Sarajevo.

Representative of the President of the Republic Srdan Amidzic said that Churkin was a friend of the Serbs and all the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who stood for justice and did not allow humiliation of the Serbian people. Cosic called the Russian diplomat a man who "fatefully said no ten years ago, vetoing an attempt to present the Serbian people as genocidal."

The Balkan Cycle by the author of the monument Aydin Zeynalov includes four monuments: to Nikita Ilyich Tolstoi in Vrsac (Serbia), to Alexander Nevsky in Andrijevica and Niksic (Montenegro), and to Vitaly Churkin in East Sarajevo (Republika Srpska). A cooperation agreement on this project was signed in January 2024 at the TASS site between head of Rossotrudnichestvo Yevgeny Primakov and Zeynalov.

Earlier Dodik said in an interview with TASS that the unveiling of the monument to Churkin is an expression of gratitude to "a great man who prevented the adoption of a resolution in the Security Council designed to characterize the Serbian people as genocidal.".